Zechariah
This prophecy is suitable to all, as the scope is to reprove for sin, and threaten God's judgments
against the impenitent, and to encourage those that feared God, with assurances of the mercy God
had in store for his church, and especially of the coming of the Messiah, and the setting up his
kingdom in the world.
Chapter 1
Chapter Outline
An exhortation to repentance. (1–6)
A vision of the ministry of angels. (7–17)
The security of the Jews and the destruction (18–21)
of their enemies.Verses 1–6
God's almighty power and sovereign dominion, should engage and encourage sinners to repent
and turn to Him. It is very desirable to have the Lord of hosts for our friend, and very dreadful to
have him for our enemy. Review what is past, and observe the message God sent by his servants,
the prophets, to your fathers. Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings. Be
persuaded to leave your sins, as the only way to prevent approaching ruin. What is become of our
fathers, and of the prophets that preached to them? They are all dead and gone. Here they were, in
the towns and countries where we live, passing and repassing in the same streets, dwelling in the
same houses, trading in the same shops and exchanges, worshipping God in the same places. But
where are they? When they died, there was not an end of them; they are in eternity, in the world
of spirits, the unchangeable world to which we hasten apace. Where are they? Those of them who
lived and died in sin, are in torment. Those who lived and died in Christ, are in heaven; and if we
live and die as they did, we shall be with them shortly and eternally. If they minded not their own
souls, is that a reason why their posterity should ruin theirs also? The prophets are gone. Christ is
a Prophet that lives for ever, but all other prophets have a period put to their office. Oh that this
consideration had its due weight; that dying ministers are dealing with dying people about their
never-dying souls, and an awful eternity, upon the brink of which both are standing! In another
world, both we and our prophets shall live for ever: to prepare for that world ought to be our great
care in this. The preachers died, and the hearers died, but the word of God died not; not one jot or
title of it fell to the ground; for he is righteous.
Verses 7–17
The prophet saw a dark, shady grove, hidden by hills. This represented the low, melancholy
condition of the Jewish church. A man like a warrior sat on a red horse, in the midst of this shady